Make your own legends

One last thought inspired by Cartoon Brew.

Amid Amidi's entertainingly profane 17 February 2005 polemic against Warner Brothers' diseased "reimagining" of its classic characters, Loonatics, made an obvious point that nevertheless continues to elude the pencil pushers who control content creation and distribution in this country:

... for every misguided show like LOONATICS, we lose out (and Warner Bros. loses out) on discovering the next Chuck Jones, the next Bob Clampett, the next Tex Avery, the next individual who could be creating the Bugs Bunny’s and Daffy Duck’s of our generation.

...

It’s about time that we set aside our misguided reverence for Bugs Bunny and redirected that into respect for today’s artists and the enormous potential that they hold.

When I first learned about the artists who created Warner Brothers cartoons -- Avery, Clampett, Freleng, Jones, their incredibly talented animators and writers, voice artist Mel Blanc, composer Carl Stalling, all the rest -- my first reaction was, "Damn, I wish I'd been able to work with them." I felt the same way when I read about the recording sessions for Jay Ward's Rocky and His Friends, aka Rocky and Bullwinkle: every participant emphasized how funny and how much fun those sessions were, and having thoroughly enjoyed the end results, I wished with all my heart I'd been alive at that time and talented enough to be in their company.

These people created legends. Yet if you asked me to contribute to a revival of either set of characters (assuming I had some relevant skill, like drawing), I'd decline. Trying to recapture glories someone else gained insults the pioneers. Moreover, it never works.

I don't want to hack on someone else's legends. I want to make my own.